New Jeep Wrangler Gets 1 Star Crash Test Rating, Fiat Panda Scores 0
Remember how the Fiat Punto scored a dismal zero stars in a Euro NCAP test? It had the dubious honour of being the only car in the safety organisation’s history to end up with such a result.
Now though, it has another car to keep it company. Yep, another car has come away with no stars at all. And rather awkwardly, it’s another Fiat.
Like the Punto, the Panda is an older car in Fiat’s line-up which, and when tested under NCAP’s now more stringent parameters, it too came up short. It wasn’t able to score more than 50 per cent in any of the test categories, and most concerning of all, it managed just 16 per cent when it came to Child Occupant Protection.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles also had a new car in the same round of Euro NCAP testing, in the form of the Jeep Wrangler. It fared better than the Punto, but barely, managing just one star out of five. In managed 50 per cent in the Adult Occupant category, and was marked down for a lack of autonomous emergency braking system.
There were issues with a deforming footwell, while “the make-up of the dashboard was seen to present a risk to occupants,” Thatcham Research director Matthew Avery said. The two results now mean that the three worst-scoring cars ever tested by Euro NCAP are all from FCA.
Responding to the results, an FCA UK spokesperson told Car Throttle: “Safety is of the utmost importance at FCA, and as such, our latest Jeep Wrangler and Fiat Panda comply with all safety legislation in every market in which they are sold.”
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
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sUv’s ArE sAFeR thAn sEDaNs
sELL oNLy sUVs
hAtCHbACKs arE uNSAfE
I’M So mUCh bEtTer oFf iN An sUV
I feel like the ancestral thinking of people hasn’t changed one bit. In this past say 17th century if you had a horse cabin carriage with windows, you were considered rich because even by standards back then, carriages were expensive compared to what people were earning. Fast forward to today, that mentality hasn’t changed one bit. People actually think SUVs are safe and reflect their wealth. Such a dumb ideology.🤦♂️
It’s FCA..
What do you even expect?
my parents have a town and country and i have to agree that cars made by the chrysler side of fca is extremely unreliable yesterday my mom´s van´s water pump quit on us so now the van could overheat when we drive it
I disagree with the way Euroncap rates the cars. There should be two categories, Active and Passive
Active being things like driver assists and how well they work
Passive being how well the car does in a crash.
Totally agree. Giving a car poor safety rating just based around some electronic gizmos it doesn’t have is stupid.
There are four categories already - adult occupant, child occupant, pedestrian safety and safety assists. The star-rating is generated from the results of these four categories. Besides, the Wrangler got poor results in other categories too, so it wouldn’t get much better than two stars even if it had all that active safety.
idk.
Nowadays they have to come from factory like that.
So not using it will just benefit older cars and not the new cars
If you die because the car doesn’t have all the techy safety stuff ncap wants, its often natural selection.
Also, the moose test should be a feature of the ncap safety tests. It would help reduce crossover sales.
aman. This stars system in general is misleading for average consumer. 4stars car in 2010 can be 2star car in 2018 because of diferent test standars and at the same time can be safer in crash when conpare to 3stars car that was able to get that extra star just bearly thanks to some active tech…
This pretty much doesn’t mean anything. Just because the Panda has no tech doesn’t mean it’s inherently a bad car when in comes to crashes. You would be way better off in a panda than most other car that’s 15 years older.
Besides, Fiat has always been known for producing dirt cheap econobox with tinfoil body panels
Not in todays standards, which is what they re measuring.
They get 0 today, but on release they could’ve gotten a 2
What this means is you should skip on this car and look at something else from this category. Toyota Aygo, Kia Picanto, Suzuki Ignis..etc all have better safety ratings.
The only reason the Panda scored 0 stars is the same as the Punto: it lacks modern safety systems such as autonomous braking
Even without that it would’ve still only scored one star. The actual crash protection is a disaster. Same with the Wrangler.
I’m probably the only one that thinks that these did good enough
Working abs and interior not crushing is good enough.
Jeez is the Euro NCAP being paid by The Germans!?
The Jeep looked pretty okay for me.
I’d rather take my chances with that than a 10 year old BMW or Audi or whatever.
And just cause it doesn’t have Autonomus coffee machine adjusting propeller city bomb Park female Assistant doesn’t mean its unsafe.
It means that today it would not be a good cars to have a crash in.
Same with those old BMWs
But back when they released they were really good.
“Oh yeah, there’s a result I don’t like, surely it must be paid for.” The Wrangler just is an unsafe car and there really is no excuse for it, given that the Suzuki Jimny (a proper off-roader too) got 3 stars in the very same crash test. The Jeep Compass got five stars just last year, surely that was paid for by the German Big Three too, right?
Besides, a 10-year-old Audi would get bad results by today’s standards too. Just look at what happened when they tested the Fiat Panda again after 13 years.
I’m sorry the windshield stays intact and the A-pillar does not warp so much as a mm in any of the tests and that quantifies as 1 out of 5? Certainly is no Volvo but a 1 out of 5 impies it’s a deathtrap which it definitely is not.
Really don’t even like Jeeps but this is a silly rating system
I got hit in a 27 year old wrangler on the front side when pulling out of a gas station by car going the speed limit of 40 and I walked away without a scratch.
A car which is designed to be deformed when it crashes will often be safer than a car designed to be unscaved. This is because the deformed car will absorbe most of the impact damage, whilst the passenger in the unscaved car will be killed by the shock of the impact whilst the car stays the same.
There is way more to the crash test evaluation than simply how a car look after the crash. Cabin intrusion, energy absorption and movement control of dummy inside of the vehicle is more important. See how hard the rear seat passenger’s head hit the rear door during the side impact test, that is probably a RIP right there.
These cars are being measured to today’s standards and in Europe, assists are gonna be mandatory.
That is why they have these lower scores.
If the cars were tested back when they were released with the, at the time, standards they would probably get better results.
But we are in 2018, not 2010.
First of all, a Jeep Wrangler has a different type of construction (ladder with cabin mounted on top vs. monocoque) which was designed to withstand rough terrain. Most modern vehicles including most Jeeps, including Trail Rated ons (Cherokee, Compass, etc.) , use the unibody construction, and different body/chassis constructions will deform differently depending on the crash type. Generally speaking, a ladder chassis has far greater strength and is less prone to body flexing, but since the cabin is mounted on top of that, the cabin will be significantly more affected, since in a collision they act as separate components, while in a unibody, everything deforms in harmony absorbing more effectively the collision.
And? Does the choice of a chassis type well known for reduced cabin/occupant safety deserve extra pity points in an occupant safety test?
it doesn’t matter what kind of design going into it. An Unsafe Car will be Unsafe.
And this is very strange consider that Jeep Wrangler is suppose to be more “rugged” than other normal vehicles. Look at Subaru 5 star crash test, not even rugged…